NAZA Featured in Report from National Commission on Social, Emotional and Academic Development

NAZA and its work to support the whole student is included as an exemplary approach to supporting students’ social, emotional, and academic development in the recently-released Aspen Institute Policy Agenda. It is part of a national report by the prestigious The Aspen Institute National Commission on Social, Emotional, and Academic Development, that asserts that our nation is at a turning point, understanding that social, emotional, and cognitive development underpins children’s academic learning. This breakthrough understanding about how people learn is fueling a growing movement to educate children as whole people, with social and emotional as well as academic needs. It emphasizes that translating knowledge about how people learn into practice and helping students develop skills like collaboration, empathy, and perseverance requires systemic change. It also offers specific actions in research, practice, and policy to fundamentally shift how we teach children, with the understanding that the social, emotional, and cognitive dimensions of learning are mutually reinforcing rather than distinct.